The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → Crime Sep 23, 2022
by
share with
A well-known entertainment lawyer has joined the legal team representing a former personal assistant to a granddaughter of the late media magnate Sumner Redstone, who the plaintiff alleges was under the influence of a drug that kept her from sleeping for days when she lied to police in 2021 that he stole money from her and threatened to kill her.
Lawyer Neville L. Johnson, now the second of two prominent lawyers working on behalf of Scott Michael Nathan in his case against Keryn Redstone, has represented many celebrities in profit-sharing cases, including Sylvester Stallone, Jack Klugman, Richard Dreyfuss and Mike Connors.
The 73-year-old Johnson’s other clients have included numerous legendary musicians and/or their estates on a variety of contractual, accounting, and intellectual property matters, including John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Michelle Phillips, Rick Nelson, P.F. Sloan, members of Earth, Wind and Fire, Mitch Ryder and Lloyd Price.
Johnson has practiced entertainment and intellectual property law since 1975, except for 10 months in 1977-78 when he was a Juvenile Court public defender.
Nathan’s original lawyer, Alexander Rufus-Isaacs, will continue to represent the plaintiff. Rufus-Isaacs was Los Angeles-based counsel for News Group, publishers of the British tabloid The Sun, in the successful defense of a libel action brought in London by Johnny Depp.
Nathan’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed Aug. 24, alleges defamation, breach of oral contract, fraud, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress and intentional interference with contractual relations.
Keryn Redstone’s grandfather, a billionaire and former Viacom chairman, died in Los Angeles in August 2020 at age 97.
Nathan works as an estate manager and personal assistant who provides services to clients who need help managing their lives, the suit states. He and Keryn Redstone met in 2017 and in August of that year, she called saying she wanted to hire him as her estate manager and personal assistant to manage her life, offering a $50,000 bonus upon starting work, the suit states.
Nathan accepted and started work for Keryn Redstone, who he believes along with Sumner Redstone’s other three other grandchildren inherited all of his Viacom stock, the suit states.
Keryn Redstone “appears to have severe mental health and substance abuse problems and is so dysfunctional that she cannot manage her domestic affairs,” according to the suit, which further alleges that Nathan’s job included cooking meals, ordering groceries, shopping for her and managing her home.
Keryn Redstone paid Nathan and reimbursed him for his expenses via PayPayl, but he never paid the promised bonus, the suit states.
After Nathan helped Keryn Redstone move into a new home in Brentwood in 2021, she asked him to work for her on a fulltime basis and move into her residence, the suit states. She once offered him a $24,000 if he left his apartment for her residence, but she reneged, the suit alleges.
Keryn Redstone did not sleep for 10 days after taking a medication used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and appeared confused because of her lack of rest, the suit states. While Nathan was on an errand picking up prescriptions for her, she called him and said she had locked herself out of her vehicle and asked for help, the suit states. Nathan had the car towed to a dealership, then went home and had to deal with finding food and other supplies for exotic birds that Keryn Redstone bought “on a whim,” the suit states.
At about 4:30 a.m. last Oct. 1, Nathan was awakened by police officers who told him Keryn Redstone, allegedly affected by her lack of sleep, had falsely said that he had stolen $300,000 from her, hacked her online accounts, stolen her car and threatened her life by pointing a gun at her head, the suit states.
“Nathan gave the officers the receipt for the vehicle that the Mercedes dealership had given him earlier that day and explained that none of these accusations were true,” the suit states.
The officers believed Nathan and gave him a note stating that Keryn Redstone was “possibly mentally ill,” the suit states. Nathan left the home, quit his job and filed a police report against her for allegedly making a false 911 call, the suit states. In response, Keryn Redstone “began a vendetta of threats, lies and intimidation against Nathan,” telling people that the plaintiff had committed crimes against her and that she intended to have him “killed or seriously injured,” the suit states.
Nathan learned about the alleged threats and “became terrified and in fear for his life and personal safety because he believed that Keryn Redstone was so angry, wealthy and deranged that she was capable of paying a criminal to have him killed or badly beaten up,” the suit states.
Keryn Redstone also contacted PayPal and complained that Nathan had stolen money from her, causing him to have a deficit of more than $50,000 in his account, the suit states.
“PayPal’s collection agency is harassing Nathan on a near daily basis, demanding that he repay the sum allegedly owed plus interest and penalties, and threatening legal action if he does not,” all of which has damaged his credit, the suit states.
Nathan continues to suffer severe emotional distress, according to his suit.
